1 82 TimehrL 
make ingress or egress — traces being only occasionally 
found of a minute aperture at various parts of the pod, 
generally near the stalk. The explanation of this evidently 
is that the substance of the ripe pod is hard, too hard for the 
beetle to perforate ; and the presence of the adult 
inside is only explicable by the fa6l that, when the pod 
is young and soft, its substance has been pierced by the 
female beetle for the deposition of her eggs, the larvae 
from which have eaten into the substance of the pod, there 
to go through their metamorphosis to the adult form which 
one finds in the ripe pod, at which stage the original 
puncture has been more or less obliterated by growth. 
The adult beetles are liberated eventually by the decay 
of the pods, which quickly takes place on the moist or 
wet ground, helped on by the various boring insects 
which attack them, and by the large ground birds which 
break them open, with all such rubbish on the ground, 
feeding on the grubs and other forms inside. Here 
evidently the protective colouring of the beetle comes 
into play and its adaptation is explained, since all forms 
which would be mistaken for the meal of the seeds, and 
more especially those which, from the dark marks upon 
the wings, would give the idea of the hard seed itself, 
would tend to be preserved from destruction, and would 
perpetuate those very characters to which their salvation 
was due. 
The Avifauna of Georgetown. — In a recent number 
of this Journal (Ttmekri, Vol. v. New Series, Parti, June 
1891, p. 69), a preliminary descriptive paper on the 
Native Birds of Georgetown was published, to serve as an 
introduction not only to the fauna of Georgetown in par- 
